Tag Archives: romina moradi

Sorry for my lack of posts lately. As I always say—the small girl has literally had a big plate. I owe so many of you answers and I apologize for the delay of this post. Thank you for your emails and comments—I would like to say right off the bat that yes, I have moved. I have left my overly comfortable Vancouver life to experience Eastern Europe (Poland) and attend medical school here. Many of you are confused over my decision and I don’t blame you! Medical school and my nerdy side often got lost behind all the food. But becoming a doctor has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl.

Two of you had asked in your emails why it has taken me so long to “explain my move”. And to be completely honest, I’ve been avoiding admitting my leave from the Vancouver food world. It’s been the hardest sacrifice I have made and I still have my daily moments of regret. However, small girl big plate will always be a part of me and as long as I’m still eating—she will be up and running. She will now be Polak based and the journey of my new city and school will be in cooperated into the posts.

I will be back in Vancouver during Christmas & summer time—so smgirlbigplate will still be reviewing Vancity restaurants then. Don’t you worry!

I hope that all you wonderful foodies still keep up with my food journeys. I wish you were all here to experience the food that I’ve been eating. I’ve found so much peace and happiness in Poland and the scariest part about this move, is that a psychic I visited two years ago in Vancouver, had predicted this exact outcome for my life. She asked me what I wanted to know and I told her to tell me what she saw in my future. She flipped her tarot cards over and said I would become a Doctor and I would live in Europe—“somewhere near Sweden”.

4.5/5 (Very Good- Noble Prize Worthy)

-The lobster was very fresh and the meat was extremely juicy . This dish was all around to-die-for.

-In fact, I preferred this dish over the Crawfish. However, I would still recommend that you order the Crawfish over the lobster because it’s unique to this restaurant and hard to find elsewhere.

-The garlic-butter was a good seasoning choice for the lobster. I felt as though the cray mix (which we ordered for the crawfish) would have overpowered the delicacy of the lobster meat.

-You must order at least 2 lb of the Lobster.

4. Hot Fudge Chocolate Cake $5.99.

1/5 (Don’t waste your money)

-The cake was in no way moist and lacked both flavor and fudge. Sadly, the ice cream had freezer burn! This dish was not worth ordering to me.

Conclusion & Cray Restaurant Must-Knows

-Cray is just one week old but already has exceptional service and food in place.

-The ambiance is extremely laid back and cups & cutlery are all plastic. This is done for easier clean up. I could see many people bringing up environmental complaints in the future–however, I felt as though the plastic was a good idea. Maybe there is a more eco-friendly route (1/2 plastic 1/2 another material) that Cray could consider using instead.

-Overall this restaurant offers a unique dining experience that is difficult to find anywhere else in Vancouver. It’s all hands on at Cray, you get down and dirty with your meal! My biggest recommendation: order the crawfish!

I like love Peanut Butter. I love the texture, the taste, and most importantly the childhood memories it brings back to me. I grew up having a PB & J sandwich in my lunch box almost every day; 1 part peanut butter and 2 parts jelly to be exact. It was my favorite. Even now, with getting to try some of the best food in Vancouver—I’m still over content with a good ol’ PB & J sandwich.

So with all that said, I’m sure you could only imagine my excitement when KRAFT Peanut Butter Company contacted me, to ask “what my dream PB creation would be”. Ah, all the possibilities!

Once I came up with my dream creation– the chefs in the Kraft test kitchen worked patiently to come up with the “Moradi Madness”; a rich, decadent, chocolate brownie topped with a light PB Mousse and drizzled with chocolate ganache. It was everything I imagined and more.

If you wan’t to re-create the Moradi Madness in your own kitchen, just grab your KRAFT PB and get a little taste of this madness for yourself!

1. In a large bowl beat KRAFT peanut butter, cream cheese, vanilla, and milk together until smooth and fluffy. Add in powdered sugar and beat again until smooth. Set aside.

2. In a separate bowl beat the whipped cream until stiff peaks are formed. Next, working in batches, gently fold the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture to form an airy mousse. This took me 5 batches. Please be careful not to over-beat! Think light and fluffy my fellow bakers. Place PB mousse in the fridge for minimum 1 hour.

3. Once chilled, pipe or spread the PB Mousse on top of the chocolate brownie. Drizzle with Chocolate ganache.

Viola you have yourself the “Moradi Madness”!

I hope you will all love it!

P.S KRAFT PB has now launched a food truck that will be coming to Vancouver July 1st at Canada Place! They will be waiting to feed all you PB fanatics with their latest creations. I already got to try them all–but don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten to share! I launched an article on the KRAFT food truck this morning on VcB. Don’t forget to check it out!

I just wanted to take a second to say how unbelievably flattered I am to have been featured in the VcB Around Town Segment. Words cannot describe how big my smile was when I woke up to the post this morning.

I hope you will all enjoy the article as much as I did! I want to give a huge thank you to Vancity Buzz for the feature and also mad kudos to Photographer Patrick Leung, for photographing this big foodie diva for two full days!

To view the rest of the pictures and check out the Small girl BIG plate interview, Click here!

Last Friday, Richmond’s Pumphouse Pub invited me to join them for one of their infamous “Long Table Dinners”.

The concept behind the Long Table Dinner is brilliant. Basically, the idea is to have customers come out & try new, exciting craft beers from breweries across North America.

This is a great way to get customers to become more open minded & explore past their “go-to” drink.

This month’s long table dinner was hosted by award-winning Green Flash Brewery, located all the way in San Diego, CA. I had the opportunity of trying 5 different Green Flash Craft Beers, each of which was cleverly paired to a dish the chef at the Pumphouse Pub had created.

The first beer brought out was Green Flash Rayon Vert. It was by far my favorite beer. It was light, delicate & filled with citrusy hops. A more of a “girl beer” I would say (I know you are all judging me at the moment =) ). The dish chosen to pair was a Thai Noodle Mango Salad; baby shrimp, mangoes, shredded coconut, bean sprouts & cashews. It was a very refreshing noodle salad & its fruity mango hints worked perfectly with the citrus hops of the Rayon Vert.

The next beer brought out was a Green Flash West Coast IPA. It was a full flavored, medium bodied and copper colored beer that kind of smelt like…..horse hay? Don’t worry though! I solemnly swear that its taste was far from its smell.

The dish that was chosen to compliment the drink was a Coconut Curry Prawn with a Jicama & Pineapple Slaw.The prawns were beautifully cooked & the slaw was lovely. However, the coconut flavors were much too subtle. I personally felt that the West Coast IPA was far too heavy of a beer to match the delicacy of this protein.

The next dish, Spicy Dry Rubbed Roast Beef with Caramelized Yams was by far my favorite. Oh. My. God.This dish was so good that I had completely forgotten about the beer until I nearly licked my plate clean. What in the world was in that spice rub!?

The Le Freak Belgian Style IPA that had been chosen to pair with this dish was extremely satisfying with the Roast Beef. Much more satisfying than a glass of red (this is coming from a serious wine lover)!

One of the dinner guests had made an interesting point: “Beer has much more versatility than wine does, yet we never think to match our dinner with it”.

The Le Freak beer…was a little freaky to be honest ( in a good way!). I’ve never had a beer quite like it. My taste buds were on fire with flavors of malt, oak and apple! Also…check out the white foamy head on this beauty!

The final main course brought to the table was a Grilled Jerk Salmon with Miso Bay Scallops & Coconut rice .

Alright where do I begin with this dish? First off, both proteins (salmon and scallops) were cooked to perfection. I’m still not sure what Miso-Bay is but whatever it’s supposed to be…it worked & tasted great. The texture of the rice was very good, although there was absolutely no trace of coconut in this “coconut rice”. I’m assuming the rice was cooked in coconut milk, however– it failed to absorb any of the flavour.

The beer chosen to pair with this dish was the Green Flash Imperial IPA. The IPA was quite hoppy, yet it managed to have notes of sweet floral. This sweetness played perfectly with the salmon & dominated the bitterness of the IPA. A very successful pairing I would say.

One of the table guests, Taylor, who was a beer & wine whiz, told me that beer lacing is a very good indicator of a high quality beer.

He was right. Check out the lacing on this Green Flash IPA…clinged to the glass for its life. Bet your Corona can’t do that trick!

We finally finished off the night with the Green Flash Double Stout Beer & a decadent Raspberry Cheesecake Pie.

Our amazing culinary adventure was then topped off with some great late night music.

What an amazing time Kiana & I had! I would like to give another BIG thank you to the Pumphouse Pub for having me! You have a truly special place & I will definitely be recommending it. Lastly, I would like to say how wonderful it was to have met and dined with all you craft-beer loving foodies! This experience was a wonderful way to have gotten to know some of you Richmond locals =).

If any of you would like to share a similar experience, the Pumphouse Pub offers these Long Table Dinners once a month!